See the study here in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study uses 180 patients who suffered from osteoarthritis in the knee.

59 Patients received arthroscopic debridement.

61 Patients recieved arthroscopic lavage.

60 Patients received a placebo surgery.

The outcome of the surgeries was assessed over the 24 months following the procedures.

Result:  There was no difference in pain or function between the treatment groups and the placebo group.

The fact of the matter is; there is no evidence that arthroscopy treatments can cure or alleviate pain due to osteoarthritis.

So why are many doctors so quick to prescribe this type of procedure?

For more on dealing with knee pain, check out Lo-Tech Solutions and Mid-Tech Solutions.

Knee pain.  It sucks and no one should have to deal with it.  When it comes to knee pain I’m a firm believer in exhausting all of your options before submitting to the dreaded knife.

Surgery is expensive.

Rehab is long, painful, and extremely unrewarding in its early stages.

That being said, I’m no doctor.  You should listen to yours and always consult her/him before engaging in any type of exercise program.

Knee pain, for the most part, is a symptom that tells us that there is some sort of dysfunction above or below the joint and not necessarily within.  Today I’ll explain to you a few “lo-tech” steps you can take to start appropriately dealing with knee pain.

1. Stretching – We’ll start by stretching muscles that are most often associated with knee pain.  Hold each stretch for 30 seconds and do them several times a day to maximize their benefits.

Gentle Quad Stretch                                     Advanced Quad Stretch

Calf Stretch (back leg)

2. Mobility – If you want the knee joint to be stable that means you want the hips and ankles to be mobile.  Any limited range of motion in the hips or ankles has to be made up at the knee.  This leads to problems.  As you can see on yourself, the hips and ankles were designed to move in many directions.  The knees, not so much .  Repeat each movement 10 – 15 times.

Hip Mobility (hurdle step over a bench)

Ankle Mobility (with the toes elevated gently push the knees over the toes)

3. Activating – The tissues above and below the knee joint can typically become dysfucntional when a few specific muscles are not doing their job.  The glutes mainly.  In this case you want to try and wake these muscles up with a few activation exercises.  Again do about 10 – 15 reps.

Glute Bridge (be sure to squeeze your butt cheeks at the top)

One legged Dead Lift (notice I bend from the hip and do not lean forward at the spine)

Conclusion - This is nowhere near a complete list of the strategies you can use for dealing with knee pain.  These are just a few of the simple lo-tech solutions I use when dealing with clients whom suffer.  Next time I’ll break out a few toys and show some of the more “mid-tech” tricks.

Until then, post any questions below and I’ll be sure to answer them promptly.